Intellectual Brownian Motion

Daily Archives: December 24, 2012

Tip of the hat to Ian Adams for clearing up any misrepresentation of council’s expenses and clarifying some information, in his most recent blog post.

The total council expense allotment is well under budget this year. It usually is; we are very cautious in how we use our rather limited allotment. However, Scoop doesn’t explain a couple of things about how the allotment affects us individually.

We don’t generally have enough in our council expense accounts to attend more than one event a year – the amount ($4,000 each) alloted has remained the same since at least 2003, although hotel, transportation, booking, events, food, and other costs have all gone up since then.

The conferences we attend are very valuable – there are many workshops, seminars, discussion groups, plus vendor areas where we get to see other types of product and services. It was at Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference that many of us first encountered fabric buildings as alternate structures for recreation and other uses. In fact, we provided sales material about them to staff at least as far back as 2010.

At some of these conferences, there are so many interesting or useful seminars that it’s difficult to select the few we can schedule. AMO is usually a very busy three days.

Plus there is a lot of networking at these events – talking with other councillors, staff or board members from other municipalities, discussing contemporary issues, hearing how they resolved problems, what they’re dealing with, and so on.

At AMO, we can also meet with provincial ministers and their representatives, to discuss specific topics of local interest such as funding opportunities. Because we’re in Ottawa for AMO, we also have the opportunity to meet with federal politicians and departments.

Adams notes:

Ian Chadwick’s expenses in 2012 are $5,100 (he’s gone a little overbudget this year). I can only assume he was using the money to feed his ukelele addiction, as there can be no other explanation for it.

Sorry, Ian (and conspiracy theorists). I have a less nefarious explanation.

This year I attended two conferences, AMO (which I usually attend rather than FCM which is most often out of province – I’ve only ever been to FCM when it was held in Toronto at which time I didn’t get to AMO), and the Ontario Library Association conference in Toronto. First time in my 20 years on the board I’ve attended the OLA conference, and first time I’ve attended two conferences in a year.

The OLA event used to be paid for from the library budget, but because council reduced the library’s budget after the event was booked and paid for, the money had to be added to my council expenses, not the library’s. So my expenses ran over – it’s the first time in the last decade that it has done so. Mea culpa, but not going would have cost the registration fee anyway.

Not a single ukulele was added to my collection as a result of my attendance (not even at my own expense…). However, some books from the vendor area at OLA were added to the library’s collection, and the library has purchased a new digital newsreader for its customers. That comes from spending a couple of hours in the vendor area talking to publishers, service providers and manufacturers about what they had on display.

Council cell phone/data charges are billed to our expenses, too, as are per-diem payments for day-long events. These total roughly $1,000 a year per councillor, or about a quarter of our allotment. That doesn’t leave a lot for professional development. AMO alone costs each of us between $2,000 and-$2,500 – registration, hotel, transportation to and from Ottawa, meals, etc.

This is a challenge because there are several other events – regional AMO workshops, governance seminars or board-related conventions – many of us would also like to attend to help build our knowledge and understanding. Our budgets generally don’t allow us to do that much more professional development without doing over the established limit. Certainly we don’t have enough for two major conferences in a year.

I’ve asked staff to look at our expenses at budget time to see what options we have for improved professional development.

Anyway, the point of all this is that council is very parsimonious with its expenses (not like those characters shown in the photos, above). We face challenges in trying to achieve a reasonable level of professional development within that budget, and to effectively make ourselves, better, more knowledgeable and better-connected council members. Thanks to Adams for raising this, so I could explain. Merry Christmas.

Like this:

Bella’s wisdom

"This text contains nothing that has not been said before; I composed it solely to train my mind. However, should others chance upon it, it may benefit them, too."
Shantideva: The Path of the Bodhisattva

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